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AT&T wireless service revenues surge due to data usage AKA iPhone sales?
AT&T today announced 22% increase in profits in 1Q08 from 1Q07 up to $3.46B. Of much interest to us here at Zedmo is how important the growth in wireless data revenues to this surge. From their announcement: “wireless data revenues grew 57.3 percent versus results in the year-earlier first quarter to $2.3 billion reflecting robust increases in Internet access e-mail messaging data access and media bundles. Data now represents 21.5 percent of AT&T’s total wireless service revenues.”
Wow.
Well if we must let’s consider how much is attributable to iPhone sales (of course you can’t even legitimately buy the Apple iPhone anywhere else in North America!):
- 73% of iPhones in the US are still locked to AT&T
- The average iPhone user spends more than $90 a month on wireless service, including Internet access, text messaging, and other features. Compare that to the $50.18 average for all of AT&T’s wireless customers!
- The iPhone (plus Apple’s WiFi-only iPod Touch) is the most used mobile browser for Internet access in the US. (Actually Symbian OS still leads globally.)
- BUT… Apple is receiving $3 a month from AT&T for each iPhone user and an additional $8 a month for new subscribers to AT&T’s network lured by the iPhone.
So while one might be tempted to see where these subsidies fit into AT&T’s income statements how much this eats into the otherwise glorious iPhone usage payments and how Apple has this death-grip upon AT&T couldn’t we instead just be excited about the long-awaited catalyst to “The Great American Mobile Web Revolution?” I sure am and everyday consider dumping my beloved Symbian device for one.
Location Based Services: Desperately Seeking Service
Here’s a flare but yet inspiring panel video by Martyn Warwick and the TelecomTV team onsite at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona a few weeks ago. The title is “Location Based Services: Desperately Seeking Service” and it was attended by Michael O’Hara from Microsoft and Mike Amorosa from True Position. We at Zedmo got a very different takeaway from this — that the larger companies are focused on building the backend to enable LBS services but not actually building the innovative services themselves. It’s up to some risky and creative companies to take advantage of the peculiarities of mobility and geo-tagging that they’re enabling. It will also be up to the mobile carriers to embrace data-hungry (but hopefully not too hungry and slow!) applications.
The internet VS the mobile internet IS the internet
Many recent events like the launch of the iPhone have opened up the discussion on what exactly the “mobile internet” is. Apple proclaims that, on its iPhone, “it’s not a watered down version of the internet. It’s just the internet. On your phone.” It’s part of a long line of commentators saying that the mobile web sucks.
But maybe it doesn’t. Researchers will argue that “it’s incredibly challenging to create a desktop experience on a 2.5-inch screen,” according to Philippe Winthrop, research director of wireless and mobility at the Aberdeen Group. If it comes down to proportions, Stuart Carlaw at ABI Research says that “there is generally a 4-inch/7-inch question over screen size. Four-inch is the largest a screen can get and fit into a pocket, and seven-inch is the smallest you can get to and still open up attachments in a rational way.”
And everyone wants a piece of the mobile internet. Do we build the internet in the same way for both mobile and PC? Or this is not even the question. It’s not about the viewing the browsing. It’s about the context. The mobility of the “mobile internet” opens up so many options for location and event relevance and the challenge for fast answers. Mobile browsing is an active experience. It not about sitting back and surfing. What we’re looking for are pockets on the web that deliver immediate answers. But imagine if also we wrapped those answers in social communities. Now localize those social communities around events and places and anything else that’s brought you away from your computer with your phone into the real world.
I think we’ve got some catching up to do here.
Internet on my phone??
The act of carrying a mobile phone has been the fastest growing trend the world has ever seen. Today, nearly three billion people carry one, and carry it everywhere they go! However, I’m constantly amazed that these “IV connections” are completely underutilized. There is information that people have gotten so used to getting when they’re sitting at a computer and cannot fathom being connected to it all the time, nor do we even know how to get it. “I can get the internet on my phone?” I’ve heard that before. Ok you won’t have the same experience on your mobile phone as on a PC. Some websites and content providers think they can do it. We have something different in mind. We are building mobile communities, firstly around the mobile device, and secondarily around all access. We won’t label it, let’s say, as mobile web 2.0 to follow the revolution of the user driven web 2.0, but it just might change how you use your mobile phone. This is really cool. Stay tuned for more!